The region’s largest independent real estate brokerage is independent no more.

Prudential Fox & Roach announced Wednesday that it will become part of HomeServices of America, an affiliate of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

About half of Prudential’s 4,000 agents turned out for a meeting with top management from both companies at the Philadelphia Convention Center Wednesday.

“There were standing ovations; it was a great celebration,” said Eleanor Morsbach, a Haverford resident and an agent in the Wayne office with the Premier Main Line Homes team. “We think it’s fantastic. We’re excited and very proud of the association with Warren Buffett.”

“This makes us part of the second largest real estate services company in the country. We’re honored to be part of that,” Morsbach said.

We’re already a great company, “ added Deirdre Kelly, another agent with the Premiere Main Line Homes’ team. “This will help us enhance our tools and resources and make us even better.”

Corporate leaders Larry Flick, chairman and CEO, Gerry Griesser, president of Trident, and Joan Docktor, Prudential Fox & Roach president, are all expected to stay in place. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The company’s sale does not mean those omnipresent blue and white “For Sale” signs will disappear from Main Line front yards right away. HomeServices of America signs won’t be displayed until late fall, according to a news release.

“We look forward to having a company of such tremendous caliber carry the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brand into the Tri-State marketplace,” said Earl Lee, CEO of HSF Affiliates, in a statement.

Prudential Fox & Roach agents work out of 62 offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Last year the company reported nearly 25,000 transactions and $8.3 billion in sales. HomeServices, based in Minneapolis, has some 21,000 real estate agents in 24 states and handled nearly $53 billion in residential real estate sales in 2012.

“We are proud to be a part of HomeServices of America,” said Prudential Fox & Roach CEO Flick in a statement. "We are joining an organization known for its strength and stability, one that is consistent with our high standards of service and integrity, making this a win/win for our customers and our sales associates."

Prudential Fox & Roach began with the merger of Roach Bros. of Devon with Emlen Wheeler of Philadelphia in 1995. Two year later, Roach Wheeler merged with Fox & Lazo of Haddonfield, N.J. to become Fox & Roach. In 1999, the company bought Prudential Preferred Properties, which had a significant presence on the Main Line.

“I trust Larry Flick’s judgment implicitly. I know he’s taking us to an even greater place,” said Morsbach, a real estate agent for 21 years. “It’s a huge plus for us agents and realtors serving the Main Line community. We’re going to have national exposure and presence and the backing of one of strongest companies in our country.“

Every quarter, many money managers have to disclose what they've bought and sold, via "13F" filings. Their latest moves can shine a bright light on smart stock picks.

Today, let's look at investing giant Warren Buffett. His Berkshire Hathaway company has increased its per-share book value by an annual average of 19.7% between 1965 and 2012, leaving the S&P 500 in the dust with its 9.4%. Clearly, the guy knows a thing or two about investing. With that in mind, let's take a look at his company's recent investment activity, noting that he heads a large corporation, and not a hedge fund or mutual fund. While he owns many businesses in their entirety, from Dairy Queen to Geico to Fruit of the Loom, he also has tens of billions of dollars invested in the stock of other companies.

The company's reportable stock portfolio totaled $89 billion in value as of June 30.

Before we delve into changes in the portfolio, it's important to note that the collection of stocks and its management is not handled entirely by Buffett. For many years Lou Simpson managed the investments of Berkshire subsidiary Geico, and now there are two newcomers in the fold co-managing some Berkshire money, one or both of whom may end up succeeding Buffett at the company's investment helm. They're Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, and some of Berkshire's investment moves reflect their thinking. Each has had the amount of money he manages for Buffett increased, suggesting that Buffett is pleased with them. The total has recently been about $5 billion apiece. Thus, we shouldn't assume that any particular purchase or sale is purely a Buffett decision.

Interesting developments
So what does Berkshire Hathaway's latest quarterly 13F filing tell us? Here are a few interesting details

The company's new holdings are Suncor Energy (NYSE: SU) and DISH Network(NASDAQ: DISH) . Canada's largest energy company, Suncorhas been shifting its focusfrom low-priced natural gas to more profitable oil and is also investing significantly in renewable energies. It's vulnerable to possible tightened regulations on pipelines, and many like its diversification beyond North America. Suncor's last quarter featured operating earnings down because of some planned and unplanned production outages. Its stock yields 2.4%.

DISH Network is a relatively small new holding for Berkshire, and an intriguing one, as many see it and other pay-TV services threatened by the growth of streaming video services. In aninteresting move, DISH recently inked a deal with Southwest Airlines to offer free TV on flights. The company had previously pursued some far bigger deals. The company's second quarter featured a net subscriber loss, leading some to speculate that it might end up strengthening itself by merging with another company.

Among holdings in which Berkshire Hathaway increased its stake were National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV) and Chicago Bridge & Iron (NYSE: CBI) . National Oilwell Varco is dominant in oil and gas drilling and oilfield services equipment. It recently posted second-quarter earnings that featured revenue growing but earnings shrinking a bit. It also reported a record backlog for capital equipment orders of nearly $14 billion, up 24% over year-earlier levels. The company has gobbled up many smaller companies, which may pay off well, as they get fully integrated into the mothership. National Oilwell Varco recently doubled its dividend (yielding 1.4%) and seems an attractive buy to many.

Chicago Bridge and Iron offers construction and engineering services to the energy and natural resources sectors, working on projects related to the water, hydrocarbon, and nuclear industries. Its second quarter featured estimate-topping revenue, but it lowered its expected new orders for 2013 a bit, in part because of governmental delays. Its backlog is still hefty, topping $24 billion. The company bought Shaw Group last year, which is known for constructing nuclear-related buildings. Chicago Bridge & Iron's stock is up 63% over the past year and has averaged annual growth of nearly 24% over the past 15 years.

Berkshire Hathaway reduced its stake in lots of companies, including Kraft Foods (NASDAQ:KRFT) , Mondelez International, and Moody's. Mondelez was split up from the overall Kraft company last year. Kraft Foods now specializes in domestic groceries, including brands such as Jell-O, Oscar Mayer, and Planters, while Mondelez focuses on global snacks and beverages, including brands such as Oreo, Trident, Tang, and Cadbury. Kraft has been favoring profitability over revenue growth, and in its second quarter, earnings rose while revenue slid a bit. Kraft is challenged by competition from private labels. On the plus side, it does offer a 3.6% dividend yield.

Finally, Berkshire Hathaway closed out its position in USA Today publisher Gannett. It may seem an ironic move, since Buffett is a big fan of newspapers, long owning The Buffalo News and a chunk of The Washington Post and recently buying the Omaha World Herald, among other names. But Buffett himself has noted that the newspaper business is in a very tough position these days.

Having lunch with fabled billionaire Warren Buffett is usually a pretty expensive proposition, on the order of a million dollars or so. But Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan was recently able to convince Buffett to open his wallet and buy him dinner. All he had to do was make the Berkshire Hathaway baron $5 billion richer in two years.

On Aug. 6, the two met at Omaha's Happy Hollow Club, where Buffett is a member, according to people briefed on the dinner. On the menu: The economy, the banking sector, and—"very likely"—the state of his $5 billion investment in the bank, these people said ... Shares of Bank of America have risen more than 100 percent since Buffett took a similar stake in Bank of America in August 2011—leading Buffett to thank Moynihan for what is now a $5.27 billion paper profit for Berkshire Hathaway in just two years, these people said.

Such is the power of Buffett — make him $5 billion, and you still have to fly to Omaha.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported a stake in Suncor Energy Inc. and added to a holding in General Motors Co. as billionaire Chairman Warren Buffett and his deputies spent the most on stocks in a quarter since 2011.

Buffett’s firm owned 17.8 million Suncor shares on June 30, a stake valued at more than US$500 million in the Calgary-based heavy-oil producer, Berkshire said Thursday in a regulatory filing. The company also added to its holdings in U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co. The filing omitted some data that was reported confidentially to regulators.

Courtesy of SuncorCanadian oil companies including Suncor have benefited as the gap between oil-sands crude grade Western Canada Select and U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate narrowed from a record US$42.50 a barrel in December.

The billionaire’s preference for buying stocks and businesses rather than bonds has helped his company weather a spike in interest rates this year. Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s equity portfolio, which is about three times larger than its fixed-income holdings, rallied past US$100 billion in the second quarter.

“His portfolio has been moving up nicely,” said David Kass, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business who has taken students to meet Buffett in Omaha. His allocation to stocks “not only has been the right strategy until now, it’s very likely to be the right strategy going forward.”

Canadian oil companies including Suncor have benefited as the gap between oil-sands crude grade Western Canada Select and U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate narrowed from a record US$42.50 a barrel in December. Producers are working around a shortage of pipelines that was depressing Canadian heavy-crude prices by moving more volumes to market by rail.

New Vehicles

Suncor shares were up 2.19% at $34.53 at midday in Toronto.The oil producer has advanced 3.8% this year. The stake in Detroit-based GM rose 60% to 40 million shares. The automaker fell 1.7% Thursday to US$34.95 in New York, valuing the holding at about US$1.4 billion.

GM is introducing 18 new and refreshed vehicles this year in the U.S., transforming its lineup into one of the newest in the industry from the one of the oldest. The new products along with the U.S. government’s plans to exit its ownership of GM after a 2009 rescue have given investors increased confidence in the automaker.

Berkshire’s Bank of New York Mellon Corp. investment climbed by 5.7 million shares to 24.6 million, valued at more than US$700 million. Buffett’s company also reported a holding of about 550,000 shares in Dish Network Corp., the satellite-TV company controlled by billionaire Charles Ergen. Berkshire exited a stake in newspaper publisher Gannett Co. in the quarter and cut bets on Kraft Foods Group Inc. and Mondelez International Inc., the maker of snacks such as Oreo cookies.

‘Big Four’

As chairman and chief executive officer for more than four decades, Buffett, 82, transformed Berkshire from a failing textile maker into a US$287 billion business. The company’s more than 80 units operate trains and planes, insure against car crashes and earthquakes and sell products from chocolate to running shoes. Berkshire also holds the largest equity stakes in Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo.

Buffett calls those two holdings, along with American Express Co. and International Business Machines Corp., his “big four.” He told investors in a March letter that they should rejoice that their share of the businesses’ future earnings will climb over time with buybacks.

“Mae West had it right,” he wrote. “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”

Confidential Treatment

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sometimes allows companies to withhold data from the public to limit copycat investing while a firm is building or cutting a position. Buffett’s firm requested confidential treatment in 2011 filings, as the billionaire spent more than US$10 billion amassing the stake in IBM.

Buffett’s track record of compounding shareholders’ money and plainspoken way of explaining business has made him a cult figure for investors. Berkshire’s quarterly filings of its U.S. stock holdings are studied by mutual funds and individuals looking for clues about his investment strategy.

Some of the recent stock purchases have been made by Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, money managers hired in the past three years to oversee a portion of the portfolio. The filing doesn’t say who is responsible for each pick. Buffett has said the larger holdings are typically his.

Berkshire said in a separate filing this month that it spent about US$4.64 billion on stocks in the three months ended June 30. The last time the company bought that much was in the third quarter of 2011 when Buffett was building the IBM stake.

Berkshire slashed its stake Northfield-based Kraft Foods Group Inc. by 88 percent and Deerfield's Mondelez International Inc. by 92 percent.

Berkshire also shed its stake in newspaper and broadcasting company Gannett Co. and reported lower stakes in drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc and credit rating company Moody's Corp.

It increased its shares in Bank of New York Mellon Corp, automaker General Motors Co, oilfield equipment provider National Oilwell Varco Inc, US Bancorp and Verisign Inc, which assigns Internet protocol addresses. The GM share stake grew by 60 percent.

US billionaire Warren Buffett waves upon his arrival at Tokyo's Haneda airport for a visit to Japan on November 20, 2011. Buffett is now here to attend the opening ceremony of a factory for Japanese machinery maker Tungaloy in Fukushima, owned by Buffett's investment firm Berkshire Hathaway. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

This article was co-authored by Lisa Lovallo, a Wharton MBA graduate and Head of Business Development atRockThePost, an online investment platform that connects startups with investors.

Warren Buffett has come up a lot lately as a consistent visionary of value. Though his portfolio consists exclusively of long-established global companies – like Coca-ColaKO-0.1%,IBMIBM-0.24% and Kraft – his vision and discipline lend guidance to entrepreneurs as they launch and grow their businesses. Often, busy entrepreneurs are hustling to get customers and hacking to get users without a clear vision of the value they aim to bring to them. For direction on how to create undeniable value for the people who will pay you for it, some of Buffett’s unwavering tenets can be employed to help entrepreneurs identify how to create the value that resonates with end users and investors

1. Build an economic moatThere is plenty written about Buffett’s philosophy and strategy, but here are five principles that are most relevant to entrepreneurs, reinterpreted:

A term coined by Buffett himself, an economic moat is a metaphor for competitive advantage. The wider the moat – the more distance you can put between you and your competitors – the better chance at coming out on top you will have. Buffett favors franchises over commodities simply because their products are more distinguishable from the others in the industry. A distinguishable characteristic is any competitive advantage that sets your company apart, making customers more likely to buy your product than anyone else’s.

What this means for entrepreneurs is to identify which characteristics your company can and should compete on to provide unprecedented value in the market. Often times, this means forging new ground that is completely different from your competitors. What you can do is identify the qualities that your competitors have – such as strong brand name or big-shot advisors – and then identify the qualities that your end users are looking for and deliver on those, regardless of what your competitors are doing. Most end users don’t care who your advisors are, as long as they are getting a product or service from you that makes their lives easier in one form or another. It’s your job to figure out what those dimensions are, much like AppleAAPL+0.89% did with the iPod – iTunes – iPad sequence.

2. Be a strong rebounder

Buffett believes that investors “should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful,” as noted in a Forbes article by fellow contributor, John Reese. Of course, this advice is intended for investors in the stock market – just because others are selling quality stocks as an overreaction to tough times, doesn’t meant that they aren’t stocks worth owning over the long run. It’s their perseverance that helps them pull ahead of the pack on the rebound.

As an entrepreneur, you are familiar with the ups and downs of trying to get your business off the ground. You have a level of personal perseverance – especially in the face of high risk – that most people don’t have. It’s your responsibility to pass that perseverance on to your company, and in turn, on to your end users. You want them to feel like the risk of buying from you (or investing in you), repeatedly over time, is worth sticking with you when times are tough.

OMGPOP is an example of a company that persevered and rebounded often until they hit the right formula with Draw Something. The 20 other mobile games they created never took off, but they kept at it until they created something that 50+ million users wanted.

3. Find a high margin business model, and then find higher margins

Buffett looks at profitability at least five years into the past, if not ten, and he looks for a consistently increasing profit margin. Although early stage companies don’t have five years of history, they can begin building it now. It’s never too early to identify ways to increase your profit margin, especially since your business will depend on that the most early on.

It is a challenge to do this, but not impossible. Visionaries like Henry Ford first identify the price point that will get the greatest number of customers buying the product, and then backwards engineered the process to reduce the cost. Ford not only envisioned selling cars at a fraction of the cost of other options, he also identified a new market to sell to – the horse and buggy owners – not just the few wealthy owners who could buy the custom cars of the time. Out of that vision was born the assembly line and interchangeable parts which drastically reduced the cost of the car, allowing him to produce a high-value product for the masses. Ford was a great entrepreneur who serves as an example, and a testament to that given how long his company has been in business.

4. Perform consistently

Buffett always looks at the Return on Equity (ROE) or the Return on Total Capital (ROTC). He is interested in indentifying if the company has consistently performed at its expected level or exceeded expectations. That’s how shareholder value is created and the risk of investing is lowered.

For entrepreneurs, it’s important to lower the risk so that your potential investors and customers can see the value you propose to bring to them. When you consistently deliver on your promises, no matter how small, it’s easier for your stakeholders to envision supporting you and advocating on your behalf. Though it’s difficult to prove shareholder value early on given the subjectivity of the situation, you are in a position to set achievable goals for promises you can deliver, and then show a track record of having achieved them.

5. Manage your money intelligently

Buffett often judges companies based on measureable quantitative characteristics that indicate how intelligently management is managing their money. Essentially, he wants to know how much profit the company has generated as a result of the money it has reinvested in itself. This also is an indication of discipline – how rigorous management is with their use of cash in order to get the most bang-for-shareholder-buck. This, of course, is over the course of a decade or so.

For entrepreneurs, you have to demonstrate how intelligently you plan to use your investors’ and customers’ money to drive growth in your business. Your stakeholders want to know how well you are managing your cash to increase the value for them. It’s trendy to provide cool perks such as catered lunches, new-age offices and celebration galas, and no one will argue that it’s important to keep your team motivated and having fun. But at the end of the day, you need to be vigilant with these expenses so that investors and customers know that you are focused on creating value for your company. Take a page from Buffett’s book and have the smart discipline required to ensure that every dollar you spend is directly linked to market value created.

Fulfilling all of these items is a tall order. But if you’re successful, you will, in turn, have answers for the questions that prospective investors, partners and customers are going to pose: What value do you provide that I can’t get anywhere else? How do you know people will pay for it? How large is the opportunity? Can you sustain the competitive advantage? What this means for new companies is – go where your competitors aren’t and provide unprecedented value. Then you will create a lasting business that Buffett himself would approve of.

Of course, there is always an element of luck. But you’ll have the best chance of getting lucky if you’ve carefully crafted your value proposition for long-term value in a way that everyone can understand.